‘This is gonna be special’: Prep coaches convinced others of Dustin May’s talent By Pedro Moura 2h ago 3 By the spring of 2015, Northwest High’s new baseball coaches had for months tried to entice college recruiters to come to distant Justin, Texas to see a gangly, red-haired right-hander named Dustin May. Head coach John Herrick asked his alma mater, Texas Christian. They said no. Pitching coach Chris Haney asked his alma mater, Dallas Baptist. They said no. Herrick and Haney asked other programs across the state. They all said no. Both of them knew Texas Tech’s recruiting coordinator, a thoroughly Texan man named J-Bob Thomas, and he said maybe. They hounded him from Thanksgiving until March’s end, when he agreed to come. On a frigid Monday, the coach trekked the five hours from Lubbock to Justin, located 25 miles north of Fort Worth. When Thomas walked in to the field from the wrong entrance, down the third-base line, May was already on the mound. By the time Thomas made his way to a seat behind home plate, he was sold. “I’m about four pitches in and I’m going, ‘Oh, shit,'” Thomas said. “The red hair’s flowing, the fastball’s sinking, the slider, you can’t tell where it’s starting, where it’s gonna end up. You can just tell this is gonna be special.” May committed to Texas Tech within a week. Offers from other schools soon followed. He stuck with his commitment and signed that fall, but the interest supplied him unfamiliar confidence and a goal to toil toward. “He needed someone to recognize the talent he had,” Haney said. By the spring season, May’s fastball ticked up, and he garnered attention from major-league scouts. The Dodgers drafted him in the third round and gave him a $1 million bonus, a year after no college coach would come to see him. A year after he signed, May became a top prospect. Last month, he pitched in the Futures Game. Friday at Dodger Stadium, he will start against the San Diego Padres. After they declined to trade significant prospects like May for outside help at Wednesday’s deadline, the Dodgers promoted May to see what they have right now. He could impact them as a starter or reliever down the stretch. Many big-league talent evaluators believe he is capable. From his 6-foot-6 frame, May throws hard enough, deceptively enough, and with exceptional command. In the minors, he has walked only two hitters per nine innings. Herrick and Haney met May in the fall of 2013, when they took over the Northwest program. May was still a shortstop, standing about 6 feet tall, weighing no more than 150 pounds. He pitched only in relief. The following fall, after he grew a few inches, the coaches told him he should be a full-time pitcher. He protested. The mound, they argued, would represent his best chance to advance in baseball. May eventually acquiesced and plunged into pitching. One afternoon, he experimented with throwing a slider while Haney filmed with his phone from behind the mound. On May’s first tries, the pitch dove sharply. “Welcome to starting pitching,” Haney told May. May smiled. “I need to find what makes it do that every time,” he told his coach. May’s slider did not do that every time throughout high school, but it did it enough. His fastball topped out at 90 mph during his junior season, enough to convince Thomas, and 92 mph during his senior season, enough to convince the Dodgers but not every team. He was considered projectable but raw. Given his flimsy frame, there were doubts about his ability to develop further velocity. “Some of those scouts said, ‘Man, he doesn’t have an ass,'” Thomas recalled. “‘He’s a toothpick.'” May now weighs more than 200 pounds, still skinny but less so, and he can throw 96 mph. The Dodgers had him focus on a two-seam fastball grip, introduce a cutter and differentiate his breaking balls. But, one month from 22, he is still largely the same pitcher he was as a Texas high schooler. “His delivery was the same,” Thomas said. “The shape of his pitches was the same. He just got strong as shit and started throwing harder.” May is most often compared to the Mets’ Noah Syndergaard, a similarly tall and long-haired right-hander. The similarities spawned his “Gingergaard” nickname. But Thomas has for years thought May’s stuff more closely resembled that of Syndergaard’s teammate, Jacob deGrom, who is slightly shorter, less hairy and far more successful. Like May, deGrom is a converted shortstop. May’s wild hair belies his shy demeanor. In high school, he only spoke when spoken to. “He’s not gonna be one of those kids who’s gonna just start a conversation with you,” Herrick said. Today, May talks a bit more. Every offseason, he meets Haney for dinner in Dallas-Fort Worth and they catch up. The coach lives in Grapevine, 20 miles away from May in Justin, so they’ll meet halfway, at a 54th Street Grill and Bar or a Chuy’s, and talk. They’ll look at Haney’s cell-phone video of the first sliders he ever threw. They’ll look into the future. Since J-Bob Thomas walked into Northwest High four years and four months ago, the goal has been to get to where he is now. “The word that has been tied with Dustin May from the get-go,” Haney said, “is projectable.”
hope he does well. First starts can go sideways if his heart is racing. Hope Hill can get healthy. Hope Stripling can get healthy but move to the pen with Maeda
I don’t read plaschke but holy shit he’s off in this one https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.la...ullpen-trade-prospects-world-series?_amp=true
Plaschke is a hot take artist dope who has been wrong about most things over the past decade but will never lose his column. When Gavin Lux is an all-star in 2021, he will ignore the fact that he pleaded for him to be traded for a fucking reliever
unfortunate luck for May that inning. Outside of the double to open the inning, everything was softand had eyes